


Lava

by pluperfectsunrise



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25044391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluperfectsunrise/pseuds/pluperfectsunrise
Summary: Severus ruminates on a shade of hair.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51





	Lava

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Лава](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26157754) by [Marshall_Lir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marshall_Lir/pseuds/Marshall_Lir)



> I actually wrote a drabble! Although I think it's more of a prose poem.

The Pensieve never got the color right.

When the memories were at home in his mind, Severus could see it. He could see the color.

Poppies.

The blaze of light at the edges of the sinking sun.

Lava erupting from a volcano at night, too bright to be obscured by its cloud of smoke.

That was the color of her hair when the wind lifted it off her shoulders, when sunlight was caught in its net of strands. He’d never known anything else like it. The famous Weasley redheadedness was a cheap and pale imitation. 

And the mop atop the boy’s head was black, of course. Not a strand of coral or auburn to be seen. What a surprise: the little fool seemed bent on ignoring and squandering his inheritance from his mother in every other way, so why not this?

But Severus remembered the color. He remembered the color perfectly, even if he never saw it in the Pensieve when he watched himself make those familiar mistakes. 

~

So why was it that the boy was the one whose face—with its frame of unruliness, its sooty Potter hair, its smudged glasses and the accusing glare behind them—always lit up that moment of darkness when Severus first closed his eyes to sleep?

There was a feeling. A roiling low in his abdomen. Hot. Discomfiting. On his good days, he managed to mistake it for anger.

But it was something else entirely.

It was the breath Severus had to fight not to hold whenever the boy passed by, the bottoms of his robes flaring as his body stilled.

~

And it was like molten earth beneath a mountain. Severus doubted anything would ever come of it. There was a war on. He would die too soon. 

But he couldn't help wondering...what if he didn't? And what if he _wasn't_ too resistant, too hardened, too calcified and recalcitrant for bright rivers to erupt their way out of the deep?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3


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